October 2, 2011

No, I didn't go looking for anti-fat insults, though I did have a tab open on the Frank Bruni column delving into the hot topic of whether Chris Christie is too fat to win a presidential election.

Let’s talk about discipline.... Discipline can... be overrated. A vegan-come-lately, President Clinton fought and often lost his struggles with diverse appetites...

[And] President Bush... seemingly kept his midlife resolve never to touch booze again, worked out religiously, maintained an early bedtime and vacationed like clockwork at his ranch[.] Bush was arguably more disciplined in those arenas than his predecessor and successor combined, but discipline was entwined, as it often is, with an absolute certainty and even inflexibility. And those qualities arguably had consequences far greater than Christie’s evident gluttony might.

As an open tab, that item had a chance at getting blogged, but the fact is, I was just looking up "apple" in the Bible, for my previous post, and got drawn into Deuteronomy 32. If you think we are cruel to fat people today, you should see what God had in mind.

88 comments:

Bush was arguably more disciplined in those arenas than his predecessor and successor combined, but discipline was entwined, as it often is, with an absolute certainty and even inflexibility. And those qualities arguably had consequences far greater than Christie’s evident gluttony might.

Yeah - it turned out Bush was right on, pretty much, everything the idiots decided he was too rigid about.

But as this this quote implies, on the downside, he still gets blamed/punished for being surrounded by idiots.

Solution?

Get mirrors so non-fat naysayers, who are thick between the ears, know who to blame next time.

It's been reported that although Bush was famously free of prejudice, he did harbor a bias against the overweight. Apparently he found fat people quite off-putting. And a fatty who was late for an appointment? Fuggedaboutit.

Is Christie too fat to win a presidential election? Oh, probably not, but his weight certainly puts him at a disadvantage. Let's pit a fat guy against a really, really short guy sometime and see what happens.

But when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for them, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man. And the sons of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab. Ehud made himself a sword which had two edges, a cubit in length, and he bound it on his right thigh under his cloak.

He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Eglon was a very fat man.

It came about when he had finished presenting the tribute, that he sent away the people who had carried the tribute. But he himself turned back from the idols which were at Gilgal, and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." And he said, "Keep silence." And all who attended him left him. Ehud came to him while he was sitting alone in his cool roof chamber. And Ehud said, "I have a message from God for you." And he arose from his seat. Ehud stretched out his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh and thrust it into his belly. The handle also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not draw the sword out of his belly; and the refuse [shit] came out. (Judg 3:15-22).

I take ‘fatness’ as simultaneously physical and a metaphor for fatness in corruption.

I cite this case of Ehud to clients referred to me by clergy (pro-bono poverty law stuff) who are getting stiffed.

William Black has written extensively on ‘control fraud.’ Fat cats in government and corporations who use positions of authority to commit fraud. Controlling power to get fatter in power to commit fraud.

I just watched Schlinder’s List again last night. “I'm a profiteer of slave labor. I am a criminal.”

Nothing like raw confession by a fat cat.

Whether the -- refuse [shit] -- will come out on any of these politicians may depend on Ehuds.

A seminary student who served with me did a paper on the Ehud/Eglon story. He said that it was a form of ancient humor where Ehud's left-handedness was a sign of his deviousness and Eglon's corpulence was a tip that he was a homosexual. The reason he would allow Ehud in his bed chamber alone was because he hoped for a tryst. His desire for sex became his undoing. Maybe the thrust of the sword was a signifier also.

Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. Neh 8:10 KJV

Yeah, like ricpic says, fatness is about wealth here. The quote suggests that Israel became content and decadent, abandoning fidelity to God. NIV translation, with footnote c noting that Jeshurun is a name for Israel.

15 Jeshurun[c] grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior.16 They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols.

It's about fatness in the sense that Sartre talks about, contentedness, etre en soir, rather than pour soi hunger. I think it's clear that Christie is a pour soi crusader rather than an entitled, content, politician. At the moment Perry seems to me to be the strongest candidate for that kind of criticism (although obviously he was tremendously driven earlier in his life).

Just thought I'd mention this. Because Dubya gave Arik Sharon his stoke! As soon as "gaza's pullout was done," ... with nothing to show for it for Israel! The bozo, Dubya, asked Sharon to shift his soldiers to the West Bank.

It is the considered opinion of most historians that William Howard Taft was a mediocre president falling safely into the pack alongside such luminaries as Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur. But William Howard Taft is the only American who has served as both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the favorite Republican of most Democrats since he was instrumental in passing the Sixteenth Amendment that formalized the Income Tax which is of course the favorite law of all tax and spend Democrats as they always seek to model the government on the physique of President Taft. He was of course our largest President weighing in at over 300 pounds for most of his life and invented the term "press" which referred to his habit of sitting on reporters who wrote critically of his administration.(Beware A Lean and Hungry Look, Why the Best Politicians Are Fat, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Little Debbie Press 2012)

The President most often selected as our best was of course Abraham Lincoln but recent scholarship has downgraded his place in our history. He of course was a racist as he fought the civil war to save the union and not to free the slaves and give them free stuff. He was also in the closet because of his homosexual relationship with Joshua Speed who was his life-long lover. This combination of racism and homophobia and the fact that he was Caucasian has led to him being downgraded to a level below Millard Fillmore and James Polk who were members of the Know Nothing Party as recorded by their Recording secretary Carol Herman. He is also being downgraded even further as he was our thinnest President. He suffered from both melancholia and bulimia and ringworm the he had caught from his unusual obsession with his rare clumbers.(Beware A Lean and Hungry Look, Why the Best Politicians Are Fat, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Little Debbie Press 2012)

Of course, rubbing it in, the Chicommies also have a 50-100% tariff on the price of imported American chicken. Something to think about when you see free trade ideologues fall to the ground spasming, frothing at the mouth, and screaming "Smoot-Hawley" - anytime Fair Trade and tariffs on China is mentioned.

BTW - Obama would make a great fried chicken mascot. He is thin, so makes a better mascot than Chris Christie and half the Chicommie Politburo. And fried chicken+Negro are globally associated as a natural pairing.

A woman who's been married for only a few months tells her best friend that she's thinking about divorcing her new husband. "Why in the world would you do that?" the startled friend asks. "Charlie is so successful, you have a beautiful house, he got you a new Mercedes, and you're going on a 3-week luxury cruise!"

"Yes, Charlie is very nice," the dismayed newlywed replies, "unfortunately he keeps wanting anal sex. While I try to accommodate him, physically I just can't take it any longer. When I went to the doctor this morning I found out that although my anus had been the size of a dime before marriage, thanks to Charlie it's now the size of a quarter."

===============Funny how most people can distinguish between health problems and unacceptable political beliefs - like Obamas socialist wealth redistribution schemes being more relevant to him being allowed to continue as President versus his cigarette smoking on thesly...

The skinny knobby kneed(look at him in shorts) guy in the White House isn't doing to well. Who cares if the next guy is fat or even has a college degree. If he can balance a check book and work well with others let's go for it.

You may draw the fat-as-bad line somewhere north of other folks, but I'm guessing that you do eventually draw such a line.

I recently saw a fat guy riding around in one of those electric carts. He had two poles attached to his "rig." One was a Texas flag, which is cool--I'm for the Lone Star state. The other was the stars and bars, which I don't get.

Maybe this guy had a medical condition that resulted in his heft. But, it's more likely that he was just a big fat loser who couldn't walk very far.

Althouse: "...but discipline was entwined, as it often is, with an absolute certainty and even inflexibility."

Crack: "Yeah - it turned out Bush was right on, pretty much, everything the idiots decided he was too rigid about. "

I agree, but the people who were lost in their own rigidity against him and remain rigid even today with 20/20 hindsight don't consider themselves rigid, because just like with racism, stupidity, hypocrisy and unscientific beliefs, they can't be guilty because they are "progressives". Those things are only ailments of the rubes.

I took four years of high school German, and two years at university. Not a native speaker, no, but better than you. "Fett" is closer in meaning to the greasy stuff that's attached to your steak. "Dick" is descriptive of a fat person . But please, continue to be a fucking idiot..

Well PbandJ there are a lot of people who are morbidly obese. They have both a physical and mental problem. But there are plenty of people who have a few extra pounds on them who live happy productive lives and don't need to hear from the health nazi's every day.

I've had enough stories about our supposed prejudices that rear up in the voting booth. The press seems to always be admonishing that we won't vote for someone because they are fat, a minority, a woman, or what have you. As we prove time and again, Americans aren't that stupid.

It is one thing to be a little over weight but Christie is way, way over weight. It seems doubtful that such a fat guy would win the presidential election. Americans are pretty superficial.

Having said that, he would probably do a good job as president. He seems to have a lot of common sense and has no fear confronting those who need to be confronted. He gets things done in a state that is mostly dem. He is not very conservative, more middle of the road in his politics so independents might find his politics more acceptable than other GOP candidates who are more conservative.

didn't claim mastery of pinche aleman (unlike some of the phonies on this blog)--but read it alright ,and.. I check the german dictionary. You on the other hand, obviously don't..know shit about either german or spanish, like you don't know f*ck about Hegel or philosophy or economics, shekelsswine.

"I took four years of high school German, and two years at university. Not a native speaker, no, but better than you. 'Fett' is closer in meaning to the greasy stuff that's attached to your steak. 'Dick' is descriptive of a fat person."

Late science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote an autobiographical science fiction novel called VALIS in which he himself appears as two characters--representing the divergent aspects of his character. One of the aspects bears his real name--Phil Dick--while the other is named "Horselover Fat."

"Philip" is greek for "horselover" and Dick is, as you state, German for "fat."

In Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series of WWII-era novels, the protagonist (Budd) refers to the very fat, thick, corpulent Hermann Goering as being nicknamed "Der Dicke" which I believe he translates as "Fatty."